Richard Balmforth

Kiev: President Petro Poroshenko has dissolved Ukraine's Parliament and announced an election on October 26 on the eve of a summit in Belarus in which he was expected to meet with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has called a snap election. Photo: AFP

The summit comes amid accusations that Russia has continued to violate the territorial integrity of Ukraine. An apparent incursion of Russian tanks and personnel carriers into south-eastern Ukraine on Monday demonstrated just how difficult it will be for Ukraine to re-establish control over its own territory.

Even as Russian-backed separatists are losing ground on the battlefield, provocations launched from the Russian side of the border remain a constant threat.

The column of military vehicles - which Moscow denied sending - appeared near the Sea of Azov, well to the south of the rebel-held city of Donetsk. It came just days after Russia sent a convoy of humanitarian aid trucks into Ukrainian territory, provoking international condemnation.

The Russian government said on Monday it would send a second convoy despite the chaos the first had wrought. Kiev has vowed to block the trucks from entering its territory.

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In a further intensification of the conflict, Ukraine's security service said its military had captured 10 Russian paratroopers on Ukrainian soil and was questioning them as part of a criminal probe.

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Soldiers from the 331st regiment of 98th airborne division based in central Russia were taken near the Ukrainian village of Dzerkalne, about 50 kilometres south-east of the rebel hub Donetsk, Ukrainian security said in a statement on Monday.

"Russian soldiers have been detained with personal documents and weapons," it said. "Investigators opened a criminal probe into illegal border crossing by armed Russian citizens."

The Tuesday summit in Minsk was ostensibly about free-trade issues between the two countries in light of Ukraine's pending affiliation with the European Union, but it will likely be consumed by the war.

At the bargaining table, Russia wants recognition of its annexation of Crimea, rights for Russian-speaking minorities, and a ceasefire; Ukraine wants Crimea returned, tighter borders and an end to the uprising.

Mr Poroshenko - a billionaire who has only been in office a few months - has complicated matters on the eve of the summit by announcing the elections in an attempt to get a more supportive legislature.

The President noted that it would be impossible to win a war with a legislative body that could barely agree on whether the separatists were terrorists.

The question of Ukraine's relations with Europe sparked the protests that began in November after then-president Viktor Yanukovych backed off a plan to sign an association agreement with the European Union. In February, as clashes between protesters and police grew deadly, Mr Yanukovych fled to Russia.

Almost immediately, Russia moved to seize Crimea, followed by a pro-Russian separatist movement gaining steam in the east.

The crisis in Ukraine, in which the United Nations says more than 2000 people have been killed, has resulted in the worst crisis between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.

The United States and its European allies have imposed broad sanctions on Russia because of its alleged backing for, and arming of, the rebels.